The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

US intelligence officials have warned that the anticipated space launch by Iran later this month as part of its "massive" missile drills will likely violate a recent UN nuclear resolution against long-range missile tests.

Tehran is preparing to test a Simorgh space launch vehicle according to US officials, who told the Washington Free Beacon on Thursday that the vehicle is the base of Iran's secret program to develop long-range nuclear missiles.

The massive rocket runs on liquid fuel and was developed with North
Korean technology, and was seen on a launch pad about 125 miles east of
Tehran at the Semnan satellite launch center, according to the report.

The Simorgh was displayed openly by Iran on February 11 during a
massive military parade marking the anniversary of the Iranian
revolution. Alongside the space vehicle were Emad, Qadr and Shahab
missiles.

US officials warned the paper that the Simorgh test will breach UN
Security Council Resolution 2231, which was passed last July outlining
the implementation of the controversial Iranian nuclear deal.

The resolution forbids Iran from nuclear ballistic missile tests over
the course of the next eight years, and Annex B of the resolution says
Iran will not "undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles
designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches
using such ballistic missile technology."

In response to the report, a US State Department official told the Washington Free Beacon that "our
longstanding concerns regarding Iran’s ballistic missile development
efforts remain, and are shared by the international community."

"If there are specific launches or other actions that
are inconsistent with any relevant UN Security Council resolutions, we
will address them through the appropriate channels. And we will continue
to work with our partners, and take any necessary unilateral actions,
to counter ongoing threats from Iran’s ballistic missile program."

"Iran's space program is not about space"

Concerns over Iran's nuclear missile program were raised in a
Pentagon report released last June, which warned that "Iran has publicly
stated it intends to launch a space launch vehicle as early as this
year (2015), which could be capable of intercontinental ballistic
missile ranges if configured as such."

The report added that Iran “continues to develop technology
capabilities that also could be applicable to nuclear weapons, including
ballistic missile development.”

An American intelligence official was quoted in the report
debunking claims by the Iranian government stating that the Simorgh can
only carry a 220-pound payload, which is too low for a first-generation
nuclear warhead.

According to the official, the rocket can carry a large nuclear warhead, saying, "it’s assessed as having a fairly heavy lift capability."

Regarding the Simorgh, Michael Rubin, an Iran specialist at the American Enterprise Institute, told Washington Free Beacon that the space launch vehicle is in fact a missile.

"To believe that Iran’s space program is about space is akin to
believing its enrichment program was about medical isotopes," Rubin
said. "The only consistent factor across Iran’s various programs is that
you can piece them together to create a nuclear weapons program."

Rubin asserted that the Simorgh launch violates UN Resolution 2231, "but
so long as Iran knows that legacy is more important than national
security for (Barack) Obama and (John) Kerry, they can rely on the fact
that the lawyer in the White House will be siding with whatever story
Tehran’s spinmeisters craft."

Ballistic missile development

Laura Grego, a nuclear specialist at the Union of Concerned
Scientists, was also quoted in the report but showed more reservation in
defining the Simorgh, which she said would be launched for the first
time this month.

She noted that it is difficult to determine if the launch violates
the UN resolution given a lack of specifics in the resolution's wording,
adding, "I’m not in a position to make such a judgment about a
potential Simorgh launch."

"I can say from a technical, not legal, point of view that the
Simorgh as described appears to be designed as a space launcher rather
than a ballistic missile, and appears incapable of delivering a nuclear
weapon over long ranges, but it does appear to use ballistic
missile-relevant technology.”

Grego added that the Simorgh is roughly the same size as the North
Korean TD-2/Unha space launcher, but has two stages as opposed to the
three stages in the North Korean missile.

Aside from the Simorgh, which it is feared could serve as a
nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), Iran has also
been testing its new Emad missile.

Tehran recently vowed to upgrade the
nuclear-capable Emad, which has a 1,700 kilometer range, putting Israel
and much of eastern Europe squarely in its sights. Iran held an Emad
test last October 10, in breach of UN sanctions, and in response the US in January leveled sanctions on Iran's missile program - sanctions which Iran promptly vowed to defy.

Iran in January publicly revealed its 14 underground "missile towns," with the latest facility being shown on Iranian media as convoys of the nuclear-capable Emad missiles were transferred in.Ari YasharSource: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/208244#.VsXrlOazdds Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Israel is constructing new homes in Judea and Samaria, and that is worth a good ‘ole anti-Israel NY Times op-ed

Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, recently penned an op-ed piece in the New York Times called “Don’t Shoot the Messenger, Israel”. He wrote this article to explain his recent comments that Israel’s unwillingness to end the “occupation” of Judea and Samaria is the true cause of Palestinian terrorism, and the Palestinian Authority’s incitement to stab, shoot, and ultimately murder innocent Israelis. The current wave of Palestinian terrorism in Israel has claimed the lives of 31 Israelis -- most recently Hadar Cohen, a 19-year-old woman stabbed and shot to death while standing guard in Jerusalem. Thousands of Palestinians turned out for the funerals of Cohen’s assailants to honor them. The secretary general’s column is both wrong in its facts, and demonstrates an obvious bias by him against Israel.

The secretary general writes, “the everyday reality of occupation provokes anger and despair, which are major drivers of violence and extremism and undermine any hope of a negotiated two-state solution.” This statement is simply not true, and quite literally excuses Palestinian terrorism. The major driving force of the violence and extremism stems from the incitement to murder Jews and Israelis that has come from the Palestinian leadership for decades. Former Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat, the father of the PA, said in 1970, “The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromise.” In 1995, just after the second Oslo Accords were signed, Arafat stated, “All of us are willing to be martyrs along the way, until our flag flies over Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine.” The PA have incited violence against Israelis for years. His successor Mahmoud Abbas recently admitted to ignoring a 2008 ‘land for peace’ offering from Israeli Prime Minister Olmert stating “I rejected [the peace plan] out of hand.” The Secretary General ignores the fact that from Arafat to Abbas, Palestinians have endlessly acknowledged they do not want peace. Ban Ki-Moon also claims that Israeli settlements are an obstacle to peace and cause terrorism, and that Palestinian frustration comes from Israeli “Plans for over 150 new homes in illegal settlements.” We can dislodge this claim with a little history lesson: settlements have never been an obstacle to peace. From 1949-1967 under Jordanian control, there were zero settlements in Judea and Samaria, and there were still numerous Palestinian terrorist attacks. In 1978, Israel froze the building of new settlements for 3 months in the hopes of attracting the Arabs to join the Camp David Accords, but it did not. The peace process also did not benefit when Israelis froze settlements again in 1994, 2005, 2008, and 2010. In fact, during the Oslo Accords in September 1993 and Oslo 2 in September 1995, Jewish population grew in the disputed territories by roughly 50%, but this did not deter the Palestinians from signing the accords. In 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Barak offered to withdraw from over 90% of Judea and Samaria, which would have removed many settlements, but Arafat refused to make peace. In 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert offered a similar plan, which was similarly rejected by Abbas.Then there is the bias the Secretary General clearly shows against Israel.In his column, Ban Ki-Moon mentioned being “Disturbed by statements from senior members of Israel’s government that the (two state solution) should be abandoned altogether.” These statements are not inflammatory, but reflect the reality of the situation, and certainly pale in comparison to the far more disturbing statements made by the PA leadership. Does he not listen to the president of the Palestinian Authority? President Mahmoud Abbas said in September 2015 that he does not want Israelis to “Desecrate [the al-Aqsa Mosque] with their filthy feet.” Also in September, President Abbas proclaimed on Palestinian television, “We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem. This is pure blood, clean blood, blood on its way to Allah.” Not once in the NY Times piece does Ban Ki-Moon mention these words coming from the mouths of the Palestinian President, which not only incite, but welcome his people to commit terror attacks. After the murder of Hadar Cohen, Abbas visited with 11 families of the Palestinians who murdered her and others to congratulate their “martyred sons.” Why did Ban Ki-Moon not adequately denounce these quotes or the glorification of these acts?The secretary claims that “Thousands of Palestinian homes in the West Bank risk demolition” from Israeli policies, which are “Legal on paper but are discriminatory in practice.” Palestinian homes get demolished as a consequence for terrorism, and hopefully a deterrence to future attacks. The Palestinian Authority pays monthly stipends to terrorists and their families, which the Wall Street Journal reports comes to more than five times the average monthly salary of a Palestinian worker. Demolishing homes is a tactic used to persuade Palestinians to discourage their families from committing terrorist attacks against Israelis instead of taking the PA reward money. This tactic does not incentivize murder; unlike the PA’ s stipends to terrorists. Yet these Palestinian actions are never mentioned by Ban Ki-Moon.The simple fact that the secretary is penning this column is an example of his bias against Israel. There are over 200 disputed territories in the world, none of which Ban Ki-Moon writes articles about. He also ignores that the world is overflowing with violence and war crimes that easily dwarf anything that is happening in Judea and Samaria. In the time Ban Ki-Moon spent writing about 150 settlements in Israel, Boko Haram killed 86 people in Nigeria, reportedly burning some children alive. Also, Bashar al-Assad murdered another 164 of his own people, in a civil war that has claimed the lives of 300,000 people. Did Ki-Moon write an article about Boko Haram or Assad’s war crimes? No. Did he write an article about Islamic State jihadists crucifying or enslaving minorities? The concentration camps in North Korea where people are worked to death and starved by their government? No -- not important. But alert the media, Israel is constructing new homes in Judea and Samaria, and that is worth a good ‘ole anti-Israel NY Times op-ed.In November 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted six resolutions singling out Israel, and none on any other country. Ban Ki-Moon’s obsession with Israel puts him in good company at the United Nations

Lindsay Schneideris a Research Associate at the Endowment for Middle East Truth. Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/ban_kimoons_obsession_with_israel.html Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Israel needs a more active and aggressive
diplomatic strategy to thwart what seems to be an escalating campaign of
pressure from the international community on the Palestinian issue; a
campaign that President Obama can be expected to lead in his final
months in office.

President Barack Obama will vacate the White House on January 20,
2017, but he is unlikely to do so in the traditional manner. In their
eighth and final year of service, American presidents generally behave
like “lame ducks.” They don’t initiate new policies or programs,
particularly those that might stir controversy or have an adverse effect
on the chances of their party’s subsequent candidates for office. In
the eighth year, US presidents tend to be preoccupied primarily with
their legacies.

President Obama's approach to securing a legacy appears to be
significantly more aggressive than that typically demonstrated by lame
duck presidents, and this could have serious ramifications for Israel.

From the beginning of his tenure at the White House, Obama’s
relations with Israel have been marred by frequent disagreements and
confrontations, primarily on the Iranian nuclear weapons program and
negotiations with the Palestinians. In November 2015, after the Iran
nuclear deal was finalized, Obama met at the White House with Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The meeting was described as
positive, encouraging many in Israel to hope for a more cooperative,
less confrontational final chapter between the two leaders. Since that
meeting, however, many signs indicate a rough journey ahead for Israel
during Obama’s last year.

A recent pattern of one-sided statements and actions, primarily by
the US and the EU, reveal a new, focused, collaborative attack on
Israel, particularly with regard to the settlements and West Bank
policy. In November 2015, The EU required labeling of goods produced in
the settlements, and later excluded the settlements from its agreements
with Israel. These actions, which were unprecedented in their hostility
to Israel, could not have been undertaken without some degree of US
approval.

The US took two steps that demonstrate that approval: It defended the
EU's labeling action by characterizing it as “only a technical
measure”; and in January 2016, US Customs issued a reminder on a
twenty-year-old requirement to label products from the West Bank and
Gaza. The US and the EU also criticized a proposed Israeli law that
would require Israeli NGOs that receive substantial funds from foreign
countries and organizations to reveal those resources. According to the
Americans and the Europeans, the law would undermine democracy in
Israel.

In a January speech at a security conference in Tel Aviv, US
Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro severely criticized Israel’s settlement
policy. “Too many attacks on Palestinians lack a vigorous investigation
or response by Israeli authorities,” he said. “Too much vigilantism
goes unchecked, and at times there seem to be two standards of adherence
to the rule of law: one for Israelis and another for Palestinians.”
Shapiro, who has had the difficult task of navigating the personal
animosity between Obama and Netanyahu, has been an outstanding
ambassador and a fine advocate for mutual American-Israeli interests.
The harsh tone of his speech was not his style, suggesting either that
it was dictated to him by the White House or the State Department, or
that he thought that this was what they wanted him to say.

These statements and actions in combination reveal a wide-scale,
coordinated attack on the settlements and Israeli policy. This attack is
hypocritical, discriminatory and counterproductive. The EU-US labeling
of goods from the West Bank has not been applied to any other country
holding or occupying disputed territories, such as Morocco in Western
Sahara, Turkey in Northern Cyprus, China in Tibet, or Russia in the
Crimean Peninsula. The lack of a similar EU action in the Northern
Cyprus case is particularly noteworthy, because Cyprus is a member state
of the EU. Singling Israel out for special treatment in this (or any)
way borders on anti-Semitism.

Washington ought to be reminded that often it seems as if the US
maintains two de facto legal systems: one for whites and one for blacks
(as has been highlighted by a spate of investigations into murders of
blacks by white police officers). Yet no one calls the US an apartheid
state, an accusation that is persistently hurled at Israel.

Nor is any other country in the world subjected to relentless
criticism of its policies by numerous NGOs funded by foreign countries.
These NGOs claim solely to be protecting human rights in the West Bank
and Israel, but are in fact seeking a complete Israeli withdrawal to the
pre-1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Several
of them deny the right of Israel to exist at all, and they demonize and
delegitimize Israel abroad. The EU and several European countries pour
tens of millions of euros annually into these hostile NGOs. Israel is
considering a law that would require those NGOs to reveal the funding
they receive from foreign countries; legislation that has been met with
severe criticism in both the EU and the US.

It is the EU and the US which, by funding hostile NGOs in Israel, are
committing a gross intervention in Israeli democracy, not the proposed
law that is intended to defend it.

The White House and the State Department might take a closer look at
their own Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which – considering
the negative connotations with which the term “foreign agent” is
associated – is more libelous than the proposed Israeli law. The Act’s
language is very similar to that of the Israeli proposal, as is the
rationale behind it.

FARA requires that agents representing the interests of foreign
powers in a "political or quasi-political capacity" disclose their
relationship with the foreign government and information about related
activities and finances. FARA explains that its purpose is to facilitate
“evaluation by the government and the American people of the statements
and activities of such persons.” This law has never been used to
question American democracy, but when Israel attempts to take a similar
position, a different standard is applied.

This double standard is also readily apparent in the approach the EU –
and, recently, the US – takes to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
Instead of negotiating a peace agreement with Israel, the Palestinian
Authority is conducting a worldwide delegitimization and demonization
campaign against Israel, and plans to advance a resolution at the UN
Security Council outlawing settlements and demanding a timetable for
Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines. France has agreed to support
this plan, and might even submit a similar resolution. France has
proposed a regional conference on the Palestinian-Israeli issue, and
threatened to recognize Palestine if the conference does not gel.

In the past, such moves would have been strongly opposed by the US,
which has always advocated a settlement reached via direct negotiations.
Until recently, the US could be depended upon to veto any UN resolution
calling for an imposed solution. However, in view of its recent
statements and actions, it is no longer clear that the US will continue
to adhere to this policy. US support for an imposed solution would add
another layer of hostility to the existing bad relations between Obama
and Netanyahu.

The above statements and actions – all of which occurred, it should
be noted, during a long wave of Palestinian terrorism against Israeli
citizens – are particularly disturbing because they appear to represent a
coordinated EU-US campaign. They may well serve to harden Palestinian
rejection of negotiations and agreement, because the Palestinians might
reasonably conclude that international pressure will be brought to bear
against Israel to force her to accept their demands without reciprocal
concessions.

President Obama’s policy toward Israel during the last year of his
presidency could be driven by several considerations. During his tenure,
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been the shortest and the least
productive in years. In view of that abysmal record, Obama might want to
demonstrate that he did all in his power to achieve Israeli-Palestinian
peace. He might believe that only aggressive pressure by the US and the
EU on Israel will bring the Palestinians to the negotiating table. He
might want to tie the hands of the next president by leaving a legacy of
fundamentally changed US-Israeli relations, or he might simply wish to
punish Netanyahu for the battle over the Iran nuclear deal and the
failed negotiations with the Palestinians.

It is also entirely possible that Obama will be a new variety of
ex-president. Rather than take on the role of the traditional “former
president” who occupies himself with planning his presidential library
and advocating for causes, he might seek a new important position, such
as Secretary General of the UN or head of a global organization. His
policies and politics during his final year in office might be intended
to improve his chances of winning a prestigious global position.

The signs of a brewing new confrontation with Obama are clearly
visible, and the Israeli government has to find creative and more
effective ways of coping with it. An Israeli initiative could both
undermine Obama’s designs and foil the Palestinian strategy of currying
international pressure on Israel. However, all Israel's options are
problematic, and several are unlikely to be adopted by the present
Israeli coalition government. Also, the Palestinian wave of terrorism
against Israel is still continuing, and Israel cannot be seen to be
succumbing to terror.

Whatever Obama’s motivations and intentions may be, it would be a
mistake to assume that he will spend his last year in the White House
behaving like a typical lame duck president, restrained by the
presidential elections. So what should Israel do? It can hunker down,
wait for Obama’s term to expire, and ride-out the onslaught, but that is
a poor option. The remaining alternatives include a temporary and
limited freezing of settlements, unilateral steps in the West Bank,
participation in a regional peace conference, and the forming of a
national unity government. Whatever strategy is adopted, it should be
accompanied by an urgently needed public diplomacy campaign.

The settlements are the target of the present EU-US campaign – but
they are not the main obstacle to peace; Palestinian rejectionism is.
Limited and temporary freezing of building in the settlements has not
produced any movement on the Palestinian side in the past, and the
present coalition government is unlikely to take that step. The
unilateral disengagement from Gaza failed, but certain conditional
unilateral steps in the West Bank could be contemplated, such as
transfer of certain lands in Area C to control of the Palestinian
Authority.

The Palestinians have rejected every peace proposal offered to them
by Israel and the US: The Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton proposals in 2000;
the Ehud Olmert proposal in 2008; and the John Kerry proposal in 2014.
The US, the EU and the UN nevertheless place most of the blame on Israel
for the stalemate. The solution is an aggressive public diplomacy
campaign designed to illustrate the primacy of Palestinian rejectionism
as the main obstacle to peace. Participation in a regional conference is
risky, but rather than flatly rejecting it, Israel could agree to take
part under certain conditions.

The most effective response by Israel to EU-US pressure would probably be the establishment of a national unity government.

On January 22, during a meeting in Paris with French President
Francois Hollande and Laurent Fabius, opposition leader Isaac Herzog
criticized their promotion of international moves against Israel.
“Decisions of this nature serve as a reward for terrorism and for BDS.
They paralyze the chances of regional moves,” Herzog said, adding that
“the attempt to try and reach a Palestinian state now is
unrealistic.” These views are not far from those of Netanyahu. Herzog
would like to join the coalition, and Netanyahu has an interest in
expanding his razor-thin majority in the Knesset.

Critical challenges require an unusual response, and the present
limited containment policy must be replaced with a more active and
aggressive Israeli diplomatic strategy.

BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler FamilyProf. Eytan Gilboa, a senior research associate at the
Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, is director of the Center for
International Communication at Bar-Ilan University.Source: http://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/obama-and-israel-the-final-year-2/ Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

How the BDS Movement turns left-wing students into Jew-haters.

Conservative author David Horowitz has long written about the “Unholy Alliance” that exists between Islamic extremists and the American Left. Now, a new series of photographs of campus propaganda posters reveals how this unholy alliance plays out on American campuses where students are incited to join the Islamic war against the Jews of Israel with appeals to their sense of “social justice” and desire to address historic wrongs such as racism, colonialism and the mistreatment of women.Many naïve Jewish students are seduced into joining these anti-Israel coalitions out of a desire to help the oppressed but find themselves ensnared in a Hamas-directed campaign to commit genocide against the Jews themselves.Campus leaders of the Hamas campaign are two groups: Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), as well as its less outwardly political counterpart, the Muslim Students Association (MSA). Both were created by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose spiritual leader Yousef al-Qaradawi has called on Muslims to finish the job that Hitler started. The Brotherhood is godfather to the anti-Israel terror group Hamas, whose charter calls for the extermination of the Jews. SJP and MSA conduct annual anti-Israel hate-fests known as “Israeli Apartheid Weeks” during which they erect mock “apartheid walls” plastered with Hamas propaganda, including claims that Israel is an “apartheid” state which seeks to shed the blood of Palestinian children. A near-omnipresent image on these walls is a series of four false and genocidal maps purporting to show the Jewish infiltration and colonization of the Arab nation of “Palestine” from 1947 to the present.

The Jewish nation of Israel stands alone as a beacon of human rights and liberal democracy in the otherwise repressive and autocratic Middle East. There are over one million Arab citizens of Israel who enjoy the same rights and privileges as do Israel’s Jews, including the right to vote in elections, sit on Israeli courts, be represented in the Israeli legislature and hold tenured jobs in Israel’s esteemed universities. Unlike many Arab nations where they are treated as second class citizens, women in Israel are granted equal rights with men. And homosexuals—who face certain death in most Arab nations if their orientation becomes known—are also protected under Israeli law.But most students are unaware of these basic facts. Once they arrive on campus they are deluged with anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda naming Israel an “apartheid state” on a par with apartheid-era South Africa that oppresses the unfortunate Palestinian refugees who, campus activists claim, have been unfairly victimized because they are not Jews. No mention is made of the 67-year-long war of aggression by the Arab states and terror organizations like Hamas against Israel or the multiple offers of statehood made by Israel to the Palestinians which were firmly rejected by their leaders.But these brazen propaganda tactics are only one manifestation of SJP’s propaganda. Campus anti-Semites also make use of softer, more subtle images and slogans that paint the Israel-Palestinian conflict as a human rights struggle in which Israel is the aggressor and the Palestinians are its hapless victims. The images below depict recent propaganda posters distributed on campus by Students for Justice in Palestine and other anti-Israel groups at UCLA as part of a “UCLA Divest” coalition. The agents of Hamas are also behind this “Boycott, Divest and Sanction” movement (BDS), which seeks to strangle the Jewish state and make it defenseless against its genocidal enemies.It is obvious that the Hamas-inspired posters have been branded to appeal to left-wing sensibilities. Many use a rainbow backdrop associated with diversity and gay rights. One poster depicts a young woman with an Israeli Star of David earring, to show that she is Jewish, with the statement “I refuse to occupy” written on her cheek. Another poster links the anti-Zionism movement to the anti-racism movement in America by depicting student protestors marching with a large banner proclaiming “From Palestine to Ferguson, End Racism Now.”Some of the posters attempt to personalize the anti-Israel movement, featuring photos of individual students with whiteboards that state their reasons for standing against Israel. “Because no one wants to make money off of human rights violations,” reads one sign. “Because my queer Jewish identity is beautiful and [does not equal sign] support for occupation,” states another. The positive portrayal of sexual diversity in an anti-Israel campaign is especially ironic given the Islamic world’s near-universal condemnation of homosexuality, which is frequently punished by death, and Israel’s democratic inclusion of gays in the only society in the Middle East that respects human rights.These #UCLADivest posters illustrate how the anti-Israel movement works to ensnare progressive students with lies and manipulates them to join forces with Hamas sympathizers and Jew-haters. These propaganda tactics make clear that in order to win the campus war against Israel, our first task must be to subvert the Hamas-inspired lies promoted by its campus agents in SJP and MSA which make it appear that in fighting Israel, students are waging a humanitarian campaign. The opposite is the truth.The Freedom Center has launched a Stop the Jew Hatred on Campus campaign to counter the four primary lies about the Jewish state spread by the terrorists and their campus allies. These lies include the claims that Israel occupies Palestinian land, that Israel is an apartheid state, and that Palestinians are victims of the Jews, when in fact they are victims of their own fanatical, terrorist leaders. These lies and rebuttals to them may be found on the campaign website, www.StoptheJewHatredonCampus.org.It is only by eliminating the influence and persuasive power that these lies exert on the campus culture that we can defeat Jew hatred on campus.Sara DoganSource: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261858/unholy-alliance-comes-campus-sara-dogan Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

France today is one of the
main enemies of Israel -- maybe its main enemy -- in the Western world.
France's disregard of the threats faced by Israel is more than simple
willful blindness. It is complicity.

At a time when Mahmoud Abbas constantly encourages terror and
hatred against Israel, and when murders of Israeli Jews by Palestinian
Arabs occur on a daily basis, France's anti-Israel relentlessness can
only be seen as the latest extension of France's centuries-old
anti-Semitism.

France's "Arab policy" has gone hand-in-hand with a massive wave
of Muslim immigration. France has quickly become the main Muslim country
in Europe. More than six million Muslims live in France, and make up
approximately 10% of the population. The Muslim vote is now an important
factor in French politicians' decisions, the risk of Muslim riots are
taken into account.

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, Hassan
Rouhani, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran -- a regime that
denies the fact that the Holocaust occurred and does not hide its
intention to commit another holocaust -- arrived in Paris for an
official visit.

Two days earlier, Rouhani had been in Rome, where the Italian authorities, in a gesture of submission, covered up the nude statues of Rome's Capitoline Museum.

Rouhani thanked Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi for his
"hospitality". He did not thank President François Hollande for having
hosted him on January 27.

No French journalist or politician mentioned International Holocaust
Remembrance Day. French journalists spoke only of Hassan Rouhani's
"moderation" and "openness," despite Iran's dire human rights
violations. Hollande evoked the rebirth of a "fruitful relationship" between Iran and France.

No French journalist or politician mentioned the Holocaust denial or
the genocidal intentions of the Iranian regime; that Iran's leaders
regularly chant "Death to Israel" and "Death to America"; the malignant contents of Palestine, a book recently published by Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, or the dangers still inherent in Iran's nuclear program.

Every newspaper article and politician's speech in France was about
the contracts French companies could sign with Iran and the return of
Iran to a harmonious "concert of nations."

Iran was presented on every side as a "reliable ally" of the West in the fight against the Islamic State.

France's willful blindness concerning the very real threats Israel
faces is characteristic of general attitude of France toward Israel for
the last fifty years .

In the second half of the 1960s, after the end of the Algerian war, France adopted an "Arab policy."
It consisted of the creation of close ties with Arab dictatorships and,
more broadly, with the authoritarian regimes of the Muslim world. The
aim of the "Arab Policy" was to enable France to retain influence,
whatever the price, even if it had damaging effects on the rest of the
Western world.

It also consisted of severing strategic and military links between France and Israel.

France provided financial and economic help to the newborn Algerian
regime. It abandoned Harkis (Algerian Arabs who sided with France) in
exchange for the use of a naval base at Mers el-Kebir and the
possibility of conducting nuclear tests in the Sahara desert.[1]

Historians have not reached a consensus about the estimated number of Harkis murdered. Harkis associations placed the number of killed at approximately 100,000-150,000.

France maintained close ties with Tunisia and Morocco, established
close relations with the Arab League and offered itself as a voice to
the Arab world in international affairs.

In 1975, France became the main Western ally of Saddam Hussein's
regime in Iraq, and provided two nuclear reactors, Tammuz I and II, to
Iraq. They were described
by Saddam Hussein as the first steps towards an "Arab atomic bomb."
France also endorsed a contract between the Institut Mérieux, based in
Paris, and the Directorate of Veterinary Services of the Baghdad regime,
which led to the creation of a "biological research laboratory." It was
the first organization to develop biological weapons in Iraq.[2]

Military cooperation between France and Saddam Hussein lasted until
the second Gulf War. Shortly before the U.S. invaded in March 2003, the
Iraqi newspaper Babelcalled France's President Jacques Chirac "the Great Fighter" (Al Mujahid al-Akbar).

From the start of the war, France was the main Western country opposing military operations and regime change in Iraq.

In 1978-1979, France played an important role in the overthrow of the
Shah of Iran and helped facilitate the birth of the Islamic Republic of
Iran. French authorities accommodated Khomeini
when he was expelled from Iraq in 1978, and allowed him to send to Iran
tapes calling for revolution and jihad against Israel. Khomeini
returned to Tehran aboard an Air France plane chartered by the French
government. Cooperation between France and the Islamic Republic of Iran
lasted until Saddam Hussein attacked Iran in September 1980.

To please its new Arab friends, France decided to impose an arms embargo
on Israel in June 1967, at the beginning of the Six Day War, at the
moment when Israel faced mortal danger. The embargo later became
permanent.

In 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, France refused landing rights to U.S. military supply planes flying to Israel.

In the early 1970s, France developed close ties with the PLO and
became an ardent supporter of the "Palestinian cause." France used its
influence, just two years after the massacre of Israeli athletes in
Munich, to have Yasser Arafat invited to speak before the United Nations
General Assembly in November 1974.[3]
President François Mitterrand, in 1978, received Yasser Arafat on an
official visit to Paris, and granted him all the honors reserved for a
head of state. In 1979, France voiced its disagreement with the Camp David Accords because the PLO had not been involved in the talks. In 1982, France saved Arafat,
who was besieged by the Israeli army in Beirut, and allowed him to seek
asylum in Tunisia, a client state of France, to continue his incendiary
activities.

France continued to support Arafat until his last moments, and
treated him in a French military hospital. When Arafat died, President
Jacques Chirac held an official ceremony
for him before sending the coffin to the Middle East in an official
aircraft of the French Republic. French diplomatic circles never
condemned terrorist attacks against Israel, but always condemned Israeli
responses as "disproportionate." French diplomatic circles never ceased
to support the creation of a Palestinian state, in the "1967 borders"
(in reality, 1949 armistice lines).

Hamas, designated a terrorist organization, by the United States, was defined several times by French ministers as a "possible interlocutor." A French Cultural Institute
exists in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. France intends to create a
National Museum of Palestine in Ramallah, and French officials declared
that the museum will open when a "free and sovereign Palestine" will be
born. For now, the museum is housed in the Arab World Institute in
Paris, the largest Arab and Muslim cultural center in a Western country.

Since the end of 2010, France has also contributed to the Islamist
wave sweeping the Middle East, and played a major role in the toppling
of the Gaddafi regime in Libya .

France had good relations with the Gaddafi regime when Muammar
Gaddafi behaved as an enemy of the West. In April 1986, when an
anti-American attack occurred in a discotheque in Berlin, the US decided
to strike Libya. France refused overflight rights to the US military
and pushed Spain and Portugal to make the same decision.[4] Between 1992 and 2003, when the Gaddafi regime was subject to an embargo, France delivered weapons to Gaddafi and became its second arms supplier after Russia. In December 2007, Gaddafi was invited to France for an official visit:
he signed contracts with Airbus Industries and Areva Nuclear Power. In
2011, the Emir of Qatar pushed President Nicolas Sarkozy to support an
Islamic rebellion in Benghazi, and France also encouraged
the United Kingdom, the United States and other NATO members to
overthrow Gaddafi: the result was the takeover of the country by
jihadists, who then plundered the military arsenals. Five years after
that, Libyan territory is now a base for several jihadist groups, with the Islamic State holding a large part of Libyan coast, two hundred miles from Europe.

Qatar, which funds Islamic terrorist groups, has long funded the Islamic State. Qatar has became a close friend of many French politicians; the French government has offered tax exemptions for Qatari investors who bought and are still buying assets and influence.

France's "Arab policy" has gone hand-in-hand with a massive wave of
Muslim immigration. France has quickly become the main Muslim country in
Europe. More than six million Muslims live in France, and make up
approximately 10% of the population.

France's "Arab policy" has also gone hand-in-hand with the establishment, in France, of multiple Islamic organizations.
The main one is the French branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, known as
the UOIF (Union of Islamic Organizations of France). The two primary
training centers for imams in France -- in Château Chinon and Saint
Denis -- belong to the UOIF, and are funded by the French government.
The curriculum is defined by the UOIF.[5] Many imams trained in these centers act and preach in French prisons and in the ever-growing 751 "no-go zones,"
("zones urbaines sensibles" / "sensitive urban areas") over which the
French government has lost control. Each mosque in France is free to
choose its imam.

The Muslim vote is now an important factor in French politicians'
decisions, the risk of Muslim riots are taken into account. The last
prospect is certainly not lost on many Muslims who doubtless conclude
that if threatening to riot works, keep on doing it.

French President Georges Pompidou and his Foreign Minister, Michel Jobert, were the main artisans of the "Euro-Arab dialogue"
that took shape after the Yom Kippur War, in 1973. In a declaration to
the press, Jobert clearly justified the Syrian-Egyptian attack against
Israel, and said
that the aggressors had wanted to "set foot" in their "own land again."
Dialogue began with the Arab League. It continued with the Organization
of the Islamic Conference (OIC ; now renamed the Organization of
Islamic Cooperation) -- and never stopped. In June 2013, the OIC
inaugurated a Permanent Mission Office to the EU in Brussels to "increase cooperation" with the EU.

The bitter result of decades of appeasement and opportunism could be
described as fear. France's questionable links with questionable
regimes, organizations and causes, its acceptance of a largely unchecked
Muslim immigration, its growing inability to enforce its own laws on
swathes of its territory, have made it a warm, comfortable breeding
ground for extremist Islam. The risk of further attacks is very real.
France is intervening militarily in Syria most likely because many young
French Muslims joined the Islamic state and chose jihad. Some of these
French citizens came back to kill on French soil. France cannot destroy
the Islamic State. France cannot prevent its own Islamization. France
cannot prevent, in the chaos of Libya, the further growth of the Islamic
State. France's disregard of the threats faced by Israel is more than
simple willful blindness. It is complicity.

For five decades, France was a partner in the crimes of some of the
worst enemies of Israel. France today is one of the main enemies of
Israel -- maybe its main enemy -- in the Western world. The day after
the visit of Hassan Rouhani in Paris, French Foreign Minister Laurent
Fabius (who has since resigned) announced
that France wanted to organize a major international conference to
relaunch the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, based on an old Saudi
peace plan, which includes -- as a poison pill -- the "right of return."

Fabius added that if the French initiative failed, France would
nevertheless recognize the Palestinian state. He probably knows that the
conference will almost certainly not take place, and that even if it
did, why should the Palestinians negotiate if a Palestinian State has
already been promised to them? Presumably he just wanted to announce
France's upcoming official recognition of a Palestinian state.

On December 30, 2014, the French government backed a UN resolution
demanding the "end of Israeli occupation" and the creation of a
Palestinian state before December 2017. The resolution, however, did not
receive enough votes in the UN Security Council. A US veto was not even
necessary. France was not successful, but did not give up.

French and Palestinian lawmakers are working on another resolution
that will be presented next fall. The resolution will be almost the
same as the previous one. If it gets enough votes in the Security
Council (nine out of fifteen), only a US veto could prevent it from
being adopted. If the U.S. does not use its veto, Israel could be be
defined as a UN member state occupying another member state -- despite
obvious threats to its security on every front.

At a time when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
constantly encourages terror and hatred against Israel, and when murders
of Israeli Jews by Palestinian Arabs occur on a daily basis, France's
anti-Israel relentlessness can only be seen as the latest extension of
France's centuries-old anti-Semitism.

Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Hitler's henchman
during World War II, was detained by French soldiers in May 1945. He
enjoyed the hospitality of the French government, and was able to leave France for Egypt in 1946. On August 12, 1947, he wrote to the French foreign minister, Georges Bidault, to thank France for its help.[6]

Charles de Gaulle, a few months after deciding to impose an arms
embargo on Israel in June 1967, and with ironically little
self-awareness, publicly described Jews as an "elite people, sure of themselves and domineering."

Maurice Couve de Murville, head of French diplomacy from 1958-1968,
was a financial expert who had been responsible for "the reduction of
Jewish influence in the French economy," under the Vichy regime led by
Marshal Petain from September 1940 to March 1943.[7]

François Mitterrand, President of France from 1981 to 1995, worked
for the Vichy regime, from January 1942 to mid 1943. He was so dedicated
to his work that he received the Francisque (the highest award granted
by the regime) from the hands of Petain in April 1943.[8]
Mitterand remained a friend of René Bousquet, ex-secretary general to
the Vichy regime police, until the day Bousquet was assassinated in
1993. Bousquet was one of the main organizers of the mass arrest of Jews
in France (known as the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup).

In February 2015, after Prime Minister Manuel Valls uttered positive
words about Israel, Roland Dumas, French Foreign Minister from 1984 to
1986 and from 1988 to 1993, accused Valls of being under "Jewish influence".

In his 2006 book Betrayal: France, the Arabs, and the Jews,
David Pryce-Jones explains in detail how France had obsessively dreamed
of being a Muslim power for more than a century, and that French
diplomacy has been imbued with a persistent anti-Semitism and hostility
toward the Jewish state.[9]

France did not become a Muslim power, but anti-Semitism still
permeates diplomacy in France. French hostility toward the Jewish state
is more present and malignant than ever.

Just this month, on February 3, a group of French ambassadors published a manifesto
to "save the Palestinian State." In the text, they justify the "knife
intifada" in Israel, and denounce "fifty years of military and police
occupation by Israel," Jewish "colonization" of Palestinian territories,
the "shadow of the Holcaust" that "inhibits" Europe, and the supposedly
"apartheid policy of Israel," even though it is hard to see how a
country that gives the Arab population under its control full freedom
and rights, including political parties and seats on Israel's Supreme
Court, can be called apartheid. The French ministers also asked Europe,
at the requirement of the Palestinian Authority, to stop any scientific
and economic cooperation with Israel until the recognition of a
Palestinian state. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs even described
the text of manifesto as a "useful" contribution to the debate.

Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.

Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7442/france-hostility-israel Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

It has been agonizing to watch this spiraling descent into hell in which many good, innocent people, as well as some very venal actors, have been caught up.

In what can only be considered a war crime, Russian warplanes on Monday bombed two Syrian schools and five hospitals in the Aleppo region, killing up to 50 civilians.

It was not without a bit of irony that I read the headlines in last Friday’s Washington Post: “U.S, Russia and other powers agree to a ‘cessation of hostilities in Syria.”

This, like the Iranian nuclear agreement, is yet another desperate, fatuous charade of a foreign policy victory by the Obama administration. The Syrian agreement which will not take effect for another week, requires opposition groups to cease hostilities, yet enables Russia to continue bombing anyone that they consider to be a “terrorist”. (Translation: Anyone that is in opposition to the constellation of Assad, Russia, Iran, and its proxies Hizb’allah and the IRGC.)

The way that headline was written might lead one to believe that the original hostilities being played out on Syrian soil today were actually between the two former Cold War rivals, the United States and Russia. It is hard to remember that that the Syrian War began during those hopeful, halcyon days of the dawning of the “Arab Spring” in March, 2011, when some young, idealist Syrians wanted to overthrow the brutal stranglehold of Bashir Assad. Mr. Assad’s security forces plowed down these teenagers painting murals with revolutionary slogans on a school wall, and hundreds of thousands took to the streets in support of them, but Assad’s forces mowed them down as well. In an attempt to expel Assad’s security forces, and to defend themselves, opposition forces were forced to take up arms.

The conflict quickly escalated into a sectarian, ethnic, and religious one. The government has long been controlled by the Alawite minority which is closely related to Shia Islam, and has therefore long been aligned with Iran, which has sent the IRGC and Hizb’allah into Iran. And Russia, hungry to reassert itself on the global stage, quickly became allied with this constellation.

While waiting, to no avail, for the U.S. cavalry to arrive, some of the legitimate Sunni opposition became hardened and disillusioned with the United States. We now have brutal jihadists in the form of ISIS taking advantage of the chaos and taking over huge segments of Syria. Some of the original Sunni opposition battled ISIS, and some have either willingly or through the threat of death, joined ISIS, which has claimed to have established a “caliphate” in Syria.

We now have a completely chaotic situation of several “wars within a war” with a new spinoff group of Al Qaeda, the Al Nusra Front, Kurdish Forces, and a whole array of other spinoff groups forming and quickly jumping into the fray.

The chaos has been further complicated this past Saturday when Turkey began shelling Aleppo. Of course, Erdogan is hiding behind the pretense that Turkey is fighting terrorists, which for Erdogan means the Kurds, who are perhaps some of our staunchest and most valiant allies in the region.

The Obama administration made a similar error in November when it trusted Putin to coordinate with it in the fight against ISIS, although it is not clear whether they are actually shelling ISIS positions or civilian enclaves, they are clearly propping up the regime of Assad, working with the IRGC and Hizb’allah, and further extending Iran’s growing sense of triumphalism.

It has been agonizing to watch this spiraling descent into hell in which many good, innocent people, as well as some very venal actors, have been caught up. The New York Times on Saturday cited a report from the Syrian Center for Policy Research saying there is an estimated 470,000 fatalities. The war has created a staggering refugee crisis, with at least 5 million refugees pouring into Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, France, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, and Hungary, totally changing the demographics of these nations.

President Bashir Assad, together with his Hizb’allah forces have completely surrounded the town of Madaya, outside of Damascus, cutting them off from all known food sources. The pictures of the children with their haunting big eyes and skeleton-like bodies are hauntingly familiar. There is not a dog or cat left to be found on the streets, and some parents have been forced to use leaves to provide a broth for their children.

It is almost impossible not to feel rage, when one remembers President Obama’s sacrosanct “red line” of August 20, 2012, when he stated that “there would be enormous consequences if we started seeing movement on the chemical weapons front”. And exactly one year and one day later, on August 21, 2013, Bashir Assad launched a chemical attack on Ghouta. Our television screens showed horrific footage of men, women, and children trembling and moaning with pain.

President Assad tested President Obama’s mettle, and he failed miserably. This colossal failure signaled in neon lights to the international community this president’s complete lack of resolve.

As part of this colossal failure, President Obama made an arrangement for Russia’s President Putin to have the chemical weapons transferred out of Syria. Putin of course jumped at this willingness for international prestige and legitimacy, while he was planning the takeover of the Ukraine.

When State Department officials have been questioned by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the exact whereabouts of these chemical weapons, they have drawn a complete blank.

Russia has played a dubious game, all along, while agreeing in principle, to assist in our fight against ISIS, agreeing on the supply of humanitarian aid, agreeing to a theoretical ceasefire to begin in a week’s time, while locking in its military advances, giving air-cover and assistance to the Assad regime, and mercilessly bombing schools and hospitals.

My favorite moment in recent history was the Cedars Revolution in Lebanon, during the spring of 2005. That is when Lebanese Christians were not afraid to take to the streets, and forced 14,000 Syrian soldiers and intelligence agents to withdraw from Lebanon.

That is because someone then sat in the Oval Office who demonstrated concern for the rights of religious minorities, and was not afraid to use force to back up that concern.

And because of Obama’s retreat from the world stage, we now have almost half a million dead Syrians, and the worst humanitarian and refugee crisis since World War II.

Sarah N. Stern is founder and president of the Endowment for Middle East Truth, an unabashedly pro-American and pro-Israeli think tank and policy institute in Washington, DCSource: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/the_syrian_descent_into_hell.html Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The
use of small drones has increased dramatically over the years, making
them a potential threat to critical infrastructures, other aircraft and
homeland security (HLS), due to their small size, low speed and low
flight altitude. These drones may be used for a number of reasons,
including hostile purposes such as intelligence gathering, smuggling, or
as weaponized platforms. In addition, they are difficult to detect or
disrupt due to their low visibility and low Radar Cross Section (RCS).

To detect low signature, low-level and low-speed airborne
targets, ELTA has adapted to this specific mission its 3D radars, for
short (10 km), medium (15 km) and long (20 km) ranges, respectively, as
well as adapting them with EO sensors for visual identification of the
target.

In order to disrupt the hostile UAV, ELTA has developed
adaptive jamming systems which can be used in concert with its detection
and identification sensors, or as a continuously operated stand-alone
system. The jamming disrupts the drone's flight and can either cause it
to return to its point-of-origin (‘Return Home’ function) or to shut
down and make a crash landing.

Nissim Hadas, IAI Executive VP and ELTA President said: "We
have begun demonstrating these capabilities to potential customers, in
response to this new threat. We believe that in the near future every
critical asset and public site will require these safety measures for
protection against hostile drones".